Relevancy vs Disruption: Staying Relevant in the Mobile World

When Yahoo went public in 1996, it was valued at $848 million. Just four years later, at the height of the dot-com bubble, that valuation had risen to $125 billion. The company was valued at $40 billion as recently as 2014, but when Verizon acquired it earlier this year, it paid just $4.8 billion.

What happened?

Yahoo’s history is littered with great ideas, but too often, those ideas were treated as just that: litter. There is evidence that its leaders had big ideas about the advent of search, saw social media coming, and realized that sharing photos would become a big deal. Even as far back as 2008, the company expected mobile technology to remake the internet and all of society. But Yahoo didn’t act on those hunches.

Entrepreneurs and startups know ideas are worthless without execution. And even the best multichannel brands and retailers can be caught off guard. None of them saw Pokémon GO! coming, for instance, yet that app set new download records in its first week — when it was only available in three countries.

Staying relevant in this world of unprecedented disruption is incredibly challenging for businesses of all stripes and sizes, and enterprises need to plan for constant change. What are the 5 simple steps to success in today’s mobile world? Read more.